Asser Saint-Val

Asser Saint-Val

Asser Saint-Val is a painter, sculptor and installation artist. His quasi-figurative images, by turns humorous and grotesque, bring together ideas, people and incidents central to modern debates about the definition and valence of Neuromalanin. Rendered in a blend of traditional art mediums and a wide range of unconventional, organic materials—coffee, chocolate, ginger, tea and chocolate among them—his pictures, objects and environments are a surreal fantasia on such loosely linked themes as under-recognized African American inventors, the politics of sexual desire, and the complex aesthetics, narratives and metaphors that attach to the organic compounds neuromelanin.

This theme is perhaps Saint-Val’s greatest preoccupation and is explored to some degree in every work in his oeuvre. His fascination with the materiality of neuromelanin, concerning certain dimensions of brain function and spirituality is evident in his play with the unusual, organic “skins” of his paintings. The molecular structure of the compound and the way it operates in the human body are suggestive sources of poetic possibility at the macro level, and are most powerfully linked in his thought and representational practice to profound ideas about the human relationship to the matter and mechanics of the cosmos.

www.assersaintvl.com

representational practice to profound ideas about the human relationship to the matter and mechanics

representational practice to profound ideas about the human relationship to the matter and mechanics

THE PHILOSOPHER’S STONE

Casa del Caribe presents “The Philosopher’s Stone” by artist Asser Saint-Val. The project is a multi-sensory, interactive, public art installation that invites the viewer to explore contemporary art in unusual settings. The installation consists of a large-scale air sculpture elevated over a bed, and embedded with sounds, aromas, and tastes that the participant is invited to physically experience. The work is intended to engage the public in an abyss of imaginative meditation with direct reference to the phenomenon and power of the pineal gland, “the seat of the soul”. You are welcome to lie on the bed and wear a pair of binaural recording headphones. You will hear a non-linear conversation in four languages while experiencing thirteen different scents. Finally, you are invited to deepen your experience through your sense of taste. Asser Saint-Val is a native of Haiti. He lives and works in Miami, Florida.